Squirrels

Up until 1962 the world had been satisfied with the cat and the mouse as two distinct animals.

The mouse was the ideal animal for when you needed some cheese eating, some squeaking or there was a housewife who needed to be scared up onto a stool, skirt gathered round her knees.

The proud parents share a tendor moment.

The cat didn’t really have a purpose. They would lounge around, occasionally half-heartedly chase a mouse or pull an amusing face in the hope of a photograph being uploaded to the internet with a witty caption.

It took the genius of Wilfred Stevenson to realise the advantage of combining these two animals. Wilfred was a prolific inventor having previously invented the LSD smoothie and the “Quiche Insane”, a quiche containing magic mushrooms and hallucinogenic frog meat.

Wilfred had a dream of a conventional small rodent but with the bushy luxuriant tale of a cat. In March 1962 he initiated a mouse/cat breeding program. There were some teething problems, the cat trying to eat the mouse, the mouse hitting the cat over the head with a frying pan so large you would have imagined the mouse would be unable to lift it, that kind of thing.

Eureka! The first squirrel, Tony

However, Wilfred fell back on his medical knowledge and started giving the two participants varying amounts of Ecstasy and poppers. Soon he had the breakthrough he had been dreaming of, and in August of 1962 the first offspring was born. The squirrel had been invented!

Related non-invention:
Grey squirrel (Non-invented by the Americans): As often is the case the Americans made a bigger, crasser version of the original and tried to pass it off as something new. Close, Chad, but no cigar.